Ruey fern Tan

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

Stories (14)

14 Stories

410 karma pts

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“For the Kids” by Ruey fern Tan

Today, I find out that the books from my childhood were surprisingly gory. I thumb the cover of some cheap horror story, tracing the line of a tentacle all the way to the gouged eye hanging at the end. When I set the book down, the shelf creaks. That's how old it is. Outside, a couple of kids are playing diabolo. That's Chinese yo-yo for you: an aerobic fling with a plastic toy. You roll it along a thin s...

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“Phantoms” by Ruey fern Tan

On Sunday, Leland drove Getrude to the orphanage with a large-sum check, her arms each a Christmas tree dangling with toys, books and snacks for the kids. Getrude scowled at him the whole way through. Every so often, when she thought he wasn't looking, she would side-eye him, as if he were bringing her to some remote location to be butchered. She got off on the side of the road. Standing there, with the ...

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“The Restaurant with the Iron Wok” by Ruey fern Tan

My sister never ate the food she cooked in the iron wok. I did not dare to ask her why. Each evening, all sorts of people would flood in from the streets – sweating clerks, shivering homeless people, even a few unaccompanied children – all for a taste of what simmered in that wok. Alya would stand at her station, eyes never leaving her work, with only an outstretched hand to ask for the oil now and then. One day, I was washing a coat of stickiness from my hands when a man walked through the door. He loomed prestigiously,...

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“Deep Waters Still” by Ruey fern Tan

Since its discovery, the Lake of Oddities has always had boating visitors. You see them coming in a comfortable stream at mid-day, the morning sun like ripples over their heads. They meander from the roads to the docks, they rent a boat for two or for three, and drift across the deep purple of the water, wonder in their faces.Glass-bottomed boats, though – these are new.On this morning, we take a small wooden boat out to check on the tourists. We pack lunch: a power bank for her and a sandwich for me. T...

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“In Deed” by Ruey fern Tan

Let it be clear. B. was no sentimentalist. He was a team-jumper, an opportunist, a kill-stealer who did what he had to do to survive, faced with the grey gravelly expanses of the Out-of-Bounds. Only his mama had ever called him Bastel. But even big-time bastards like him had to bathe, so each time he ducked into a river, he made sure to bring a watch buddy. It was a hot, sticky afternoon when his regular opted out for the first time. Instead, B. was making do with a schmuck whose blood ran too cold for this weather, who ...

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“Night Classes” by Ruey fern Tan

People had too much to say about stars, the way he saw it. Out here, after night classes, he could see couples kissing, children running, old men with scraggly beards strolling and pointing – all with something to say about the salt specks littering that vast expanse of darkness above. Their voices would fall onto a bed of cool air. Then these would fall between the hairs of grass, where he often lay down, relaxing after a test.Guren would plug in his earphones, and think about the people thinking about stars....

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“Sunsets” by Ruey fern Tan

The arrow had hit the inner wall of the covered wagon, just a foot above his head. Had he been sleeping – leaned against the wooden board, where he was supposed to – he would have been killed. As it was, Gwylln had not been sleeping where he was supposed to. He had not been sleeping at all, so he was alive to watch rain veil the forest in grey. At first, he’d tried to brush it off. “Probably a stray shot,” he’d told his apprentices. “From a hunt.” But Kyron and Akira had already begun receding from him, like shadows, ou...

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“Tin Soldier” by Ruey fern Tan

Recess. A boy. Conversation. Leaning against the wire mesh fence, tugging idly at the ragged holes worn through it, he told me he wanted a fleet of Roman soldiers. I said: sure  — if you’re willing to put in the work for it. It was one of our meetings in the corridor, the narrow grey strip leading from the darkened hovel of the classroom out into the sallow sun, which was filtering, then, through the net of emerald foliage that shaded this nook behind the restrooms. The Sports’ Day parade was rubbish...

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“Time Waits For No One” by Ruey fern Tan

I was wondering what R. could be doing up there, up on the second floor of the town’s only French café. She was leaning against the marble balcony, eyes blank against the sky. Downstairs, a revolution was happening, and she was doing nothing, all alone.Now, it wasn’t any of my business. People could behave as they liked, is what my Ma always said. Still, something about the way R. stood in stillness made me stop on the roadside and put down my box of supplies. I stopped, and I scrutinized her.Her clothes were cleanly and unt...

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“Loyalty” by Ruey fern Tan

That day, Master asked for the combat record. I guess it made sense, thinking about it. Nobles didn’t trust the commoners – but everybody trusted numbers. And yet Master, she was clever, charismatic; even now the men surrounding her on all sides of the round table (the largest one the trembling innkeeper could produce) were all leaned forward on their silky arms upon their blue silk sleeves. Leaning forward to listen to Master.I didn’t know I’d opene...

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“Marketing Change” by Ruey fern Tan

An ant was crawling up his wrist. It must have gotten into the cereal at some point, perhaps while he was at work. Now it sought to escape via the hand buried in cornflakes, currently extracting and depositing fistfuls of expired cereal to one dry mouth.Aaron was watching the telly. On-screen, the woman in the bathing suit seemed to watch him back. He looked away. At work, they said advertising was bad for your brain. They said it was a distortion in the free market, a destructive force. The dark lashes blinking up at him did not c...

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“The Treasures” by Ruey fern Tan

Kara’s hands were sticky. It was a thing she noticed absently, rubbing the sludge between two palms as she surveyed the tunnel. Half of it was wax, fallen from her candle. The other half, she didn’t want to think about. She noticed it, just as she noticed that there were three open doors, branching off, that there were ornate fixtures on the wall, now devoid of their torches, that there were bats squealing somewhere above. Then there was the dungeon vault, now behind her, cold and inky black.She pinched a bit of slime off her palm ...

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“On Becoming Marcus” by Ruey fern Tan

It was just a week that the capital spent without Marcus. These were long days, in the middle of August, when the stinging sheets of rain left most sane people huddling like hedgehogs underneath the pale white domes of their houses. Petrichor wafted through heavy air. Rich and thick, the scent marked the tail-end of one such shower as Con made his way through the city.Con despised to walk alone. He remembered this now, especially, dragging the wagon ...

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“Weekend Tea” by Ruey fern Tan

He came wearing a yellow raincoat. At least, that is what I remember him wearing, the day you forgot to answer the door. Memories from then rotted in my mind for a week afterwards, before this writing, before you. Knee deep in mud, he sloshed his way behind me to the bottom step of your porch. He said:“Why do you keep doing this?”His voice was thin, unpleasant, confusing. I remember I tossed him a s...

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Author bio

Tan Ruey Fern's name contains three capital letters and a last name that comes first. She is a student and hobbyist writer who enjoys the curves and crooks of words on a page.

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Contest #14
On Becoming Marcus – read story